2007

2 April 2007

TenCate completes acquisition of Mattex Leisure Industries

Following on from earlier reports, Royal Ten Cate announces that the acquisition process of the artificial grass activities of Mattex Leisure Industries has been formally completed, thus making the takeover a reality.

The government of Dubai has issued the necessary licences. The acquisition involved an amount of US$ 178 million.

The Mattex artificial grass activities will be taken over by a new company: TenCate Thiolon Middle East LLC, which will be wholly integrated into the TenCate Grass Group.

This acquisition will strengthen TenCate’s position in the artificial grass market in both a strategic and an operational sense. This is expected to exert a significantly positive effect on the sales and results of the TenCate Grass group. TenCate Thiolon Middle East is expected to make a strong contribution to net profit, in part due to its low cost base and favourable local tax regulations.

As a result of capacity increase in Europe and the US and the capacity of Thiolon Middle East, TenCate will be better able to anticipate the sharp increase in demand for artificial grass fibres. TenCate Thiolon now offers the entire market a broad and distinctive product portfolio. The takeover will also strengthen commercial relations, since TenCate Thiolon will be able to anticipate more effectively the demand for customized fibres and artificial grass systems.

Moreover, TenCate expects to gain advantages of synergy in the Grass group through an increase in efficiency and advantages of scale.

This acquisition will support Ten Cate’s buy-and-build strategy, which is aimed at strengthening the strategic base and the acquisition of companies within the strategic growth cores: protective fabrics, aerospace composites, antiballistic materials, artificial grass and geosynthetics.